What are some common pitfalls to avoid when passing form data in PHP?

One common pitfall to avoid when passing form data in PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave your application vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with your database to prevent malicious code from being executed.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection

// Assuming $conn is the database connection object

$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (?, ?)");
$stmt->bind_param("ss", $username, $password);

// Sanitize user input
$username = filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$password = password_hash($_POST['password'], PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

$stmt->execute();
$stmt->close();